The Slave Queen of Etherion Ch. 05

Chapter 1

Lysannum, Tharnirion

Rodger was undeterred in his desire to win the hand of Princess Jade. Indeed, the previous night's encounter had raised suspicions in his mind that he didn't dare even contemplate further, let alone investigate, but only served to reinforce his desire. The princess had issued a challenge to hunt her. A Hunt was typically an affair where huntsmen rode their steeds across the countryside in search of whatever quarry they could flush out. That meant -- if that was indeed the sort of hunt the princess had meant -- that a good knowledge of the countryside would be an advantage. To that end, Rodger took himself to the Royal Public Library and entered the instant it opened for the day, and for a small membership fee, availed himself of the maps they kept, and spent hours poring over them, fixing them in his mind, taking hand-traced copies, working out how best to avoid -- or use -- the world's natural obstacles.

Even after nearly a year on Etherion, Rodger still had trouble getting used to the tiny size of the world and the tiny size of the nations upon it. The entire world of Etherion would amount to no more than a single duchy of his birth nation of Galadon on Triagia, and the nation of Lysannum would amount to no more than a barony... a small barony at that, with Lysannum being the nation's only city... and that also being small. Most other nations of Etherion had capitols that weren't even cities by the standards of Triagia, and the largest city in the world, Secarium, was only a medium city by Triagian standards. Fetorum was Tharnirion's only town, and there were only nine settlements that were big enough to be classified as villages. There were four official mining settlements... and aside from that, the rest of Tharnirion was scenery. There was a major forest in the n'westing, another in the westing that adjoined the nations of Isolian and Vertellan, and a small forest on the slopes of the four-mile-high Mount Pitte... which appeared to have been named for the deep, sheer-sided crater between its peaks that descended over three miles below the level of the surface of the nearby Sweet Sea. Tharnirion's other major landmark was The Arch, a natural stone arch topped with deciduous forest that stood nearly two miles above the plain of central Tharnirion, which formed the gateway to the Lysion river, which supplied the fresh-water needs of Lysannum at its site on the Sweet Sea coast. As for the Sweet Sea, it got its name from the fact that it was merely slightly brackish and quite drinkable, more like a big lake in comparison to all seven undrinkably salty seas of Triagia, much less Triagia's Sea of Salt.

Once he had exhausted the possibilities of the public library, Rodger went for lunch... but not just any lunch, one at a tavern called The Otter and Stag, which was commonly frequented by hunters and fur buyers. There, he plied the tavern's patrons with free food and drink in exchange for stories of hunting. While most of the stories were told by fur trappers, and weren't necessarily all that helpful, some were told by current royal huntsmen. Rodger listened with interest to stories that told where the favourite royal hunting grounds were, as well as stories about Princess Jade.

"Our Jadie is one of the best..." a tipsy royal huntsman had begun to say from his seat at the bar.

"Princess Jade, Tom," the huntsman's older colleague interrupted, correcting Tom the huntsman. "D'you want to find yourself unemployed?"

"Right... Princess Jade... She's one of th' best 'unters I've ever seen," Tom corrected himself in his back-woods accent. "She's always ridin' at the 'ead of the pack... and she does her own trackin' too, doesn't need to have th' master o' th' 'unt 'elp 'er out. Fact is, she even picks up tracks that Master Crocker can't see sometimes... be it hog, deer, rabbit or mouse."

"The princess ain't allus at the front of the pack," Tom's colleague said. "There was that time when 'er mare threw a shoe in th' chase..."

"Aye... but after she 'anded 'er mare off to a groom, she ran after th' quarry... a buck, warn't it, Jack?"

"Aye... t'was a Royal buck," Jack replied, using the hunters' term 'Royal' to mean a male red deer with twelve-point antlers.

"The Princess ran after the buck... on foot?" Rodger asked.

"That she did," Tom replied with a nod. "Ah saw it meself. Started off well behind th' other 'unters on their coursers, but she overtook 'em, and 'er afoot. 'Osses got winded, but the Princess didn't. She finished th' 'unt right at the front when th' buck turned at bay."

"Ah've seen it too," Jack said, and took a sip of his ale. "Nobbut once, but three times while ah've been on th' 'unt 'as Princess Jade brought th' quarry to bay afoot. Other 'unters fall behind if their coursers pull up lame, but not th' Princess."

"Don't you listen to these two toss-pots, Sir," a plump, homely young barmaid said as she carried another round of drinks past. "Their tall tales grow an extra leg each time they tell them."

"What would you know, Meg?" a tall, lean young woman with frizzy orange hair said from a table where she sat beside her apparent boyfriend. "You couldn't run the length of this bar without puffing like a bellows! I'll have you know, Sir, that the Princess participates in most of the foot races in Tharnirion, and for the last five years, she's always refused the winner's prize, and has given it to the runner-up... and I know this because I was runner-up to her two years ago in the 'Sea to Arch'!"

There was a generalised murmur of agreement from the tavern's patrons.

"This ain't no tall tale, Jenny tells it true," Jack nodded to the orange-haired young woman. "Tall tales allus start with, 'I knew a feller who said,' but Tom an' I've both seen the Princess runnin' afoot ahead o' th' other 'unter's coursers, an' we'll give our word that it's true."

"Aye, that we will," Tom nodded. "And everyone knows that Princess Jade always wins the foot races... 'Round th' Town,' an' 'The Broadway League,' 'Lysannum to Fetorum', an' even the 'Northing to Easting' from the border of Kelvortyne to the border of Radsarnum... and that's more'n eighteen league."

"Are these women's races?" Rodger asked.

"The only women's race around here is the 'Cross the Harbour,'" the orange-haired Jenny piped up again. "And that's a swimming race. The foot races are open to anyone, man or woman, young or old, citizen or foreigner."

As the tavern's patrons rambled on, Rodger was getting the impression that the Princess' nuptial challenge would indeed be a challenge, and not a mere romp in the countryside in pursuit of a delicate, fainting, palace-bred wallflower. Eighteen leagues was 54 miles (or 87km in the recent 'Scholars' Invention' (SI) units of measurement that held Triagia as being 10,000 km from tip to tip and Etherion as being 200km tip-to-tip), a distance that would take most of a day to cover. Rodger knew that he was fast and reasonably fit, but he was no great distance runner. It seemed likely that Princess Jade could leave him in her dust, and if she could cover her trail as well as she followed one... Rodger couldn't help but grin with anticipation of a really challenging hunt, with such a lovely quarry as the prize.

A few hours later, Rodger was still at The Otter and Stag. Most of the lunch-time patrons had left, and the only reason why he hadn't left was because he was at the bar, listening to a palace groom by the name of Davyn who was talking about Princess Jade, his words somewhat slurred by the effects of the large amounts of alcohol that he had consumed.

"Princess Jade isn't just another princess, you know," Davyn was rambling. "She's beautiful and polite and generous and beautiful to everyone... and even though she's a royal virgin and the likes of us don't dare touch her unless we want to risk being sent to the headsman's block, she knows what a man wants, you know? I'm going to try her challenge, since my sweetheart died four years ago, and I haven't found another to match Beth since, except for her who I can't have unless I catch her in the challenge... but it'll be one of those brawling princes who gets her, you mark my words..."

"What do you mean, 'she knows what a man wants?'" Rodger asked carefully, slightly tipsy himself by this time.

"There was this time when the Princess' courser threw a shoe during a hunt, and I was asked to bring her home while the Princess continued the hunt on foot... and so I could get Starlight back to the farrier quickly to stop her doing herself an injury with her shoe half-off her hoof, I brought her back by the travelling stones. Princess Jade was very grateful that I'd looked after her horse so well, and she offered me my choice of rewards, a pouch-full of coin, or a night with her faun slave. Now the gods know it's no use giving the likes of me a lot of coin, since I'd just spend it on drink and be no use to anyone after, and I've missed my poor Beth in my bed of a night, so I took the night with her slave. That faun -- Zeni, I think her name was -- really knows how to show a man a good time in bed, you know... she's a girl who really likes what she does for her mistress. We didn't get much sleep that night for all we fucked each-other like bunnies, and I got shouted at the next day for falling asleep on the job, but it was worth it... I can still remember Zeni riding my cock like I was a stallion, with her fat tits bouncing up and down in my hands, like my poor Beth only did once before she fell ill..."

Rodger might have continued to listen to the groom ramble on about his deceased lover and his tryst with the princess' faun slave, except that he had mentioned travelling stones. "What was that you said about travelling stones?" he asked.

"Travellin' stones?" Davyn looked surprised to be interrupted in his reminiscences of his night of erotic pleasures with the princess' slave. "What'sh to shay about 'em? Y' walk through an arch here, and you comesh out there. I don' know where they go, and they're not for the likesh of us common folk to ushe unlesh it'sh urgen'..."

"So how did you know where the stones you used went?" Rodger asked, hoping that Davyn wouldn't pass out before he told him what he knew, since his speech was deteriorating rapidly.

"I didn'... it was Marshter Crocker who told me tha' if I was in an 'urry, I could ushe th' shtones 'e pointed out t' me to get back sharpish... and poor Shtarlight could have gone lame if I'd walked 'er all the way back," he sniffed and brushed tears away from his eyes. "I'll missh that 'orse... she died of a colic the year after..." Davyn lowered his head to the bar and began to snore.

"Can you see he gets where he needs to go?" Rodger asked the barman, who was standing nearby, polishing a pewter mug.

"Right you are, sir... Davyn's been one of my best customers since his poor wife Beth passed from the consumption. I'll have one of the lads get him home again. They know it well enough by now..."

Malachite Palace, Lysannum

Princess Jade took herself to the palace library that same day. She was an accomplished scholar, and so she knew that Galadon was one of the largest nations of Triagia, however as a nation on another world -- even if Etherion hovered over Triagia, not all that distant from Galadon, in fact -- it hadn't received as much of her attention as the nations of Etherion.

Now, the princess searched for everything that the library had about Galadon. The largest nation of Triagia was either the Empire of Quelring, a heavily forested land whose population was dominated by elves, or perhaps the Sultanate of Zarangetha, a land covered mostly in plains, with a single large scrubby forest. She was momentarily distracted by a book that fell open at the Borkate of Dhargron, about which relatively little was said other than it was populated by orcs and that it had the dubious honour of being the home of the Tomb of Talengorth, a massive mausoleum sheathed in ivory voluntarily sacrificed (by force where necessary) from the mouths of Dhargron's citizens in memory of the death of the hellspawn emperor Talengorth, who was the most respected Bork (monarch of an Orcish land, even though as a hellspawn, Talengorth hadn't been an orc himself) of any of the orcish lands since the Bork (the greatest orcish emperor of all, after whom all following orcish monarchs were titled). Jade shuddered at the descriptions of the tortures that were practised and taught at Talengorth's tomb, before she caught herself digressing from her research and she shut the book with a thump and put it well aside.

On the other hand, when she finally found the books she wanted, Jade learned that despite being a little smaller than Quelring or Zarangetha at around three thousand km across, the Kingdom of Galadon was by far the richest of all nations. It's capitol, Arcandor, occupied the land trade choke-point between the central Sea of Storms and the unnavigable Sea of Ice, as well as being a major sea port on the Sea of Storms. It had more cultivated farmland than any other nation. In comparison to her own Etherion, which was a tetrahedral world 200km from point to point, Galadon had perhaps half a million square km of farmland, while Etherion had 20,000 square km of land in total. It took Jade a few moments to convert the Scholar's Invention units to the traditional units she was more familiar with... 200km was 125 miles or 41⅔ leagues, a half-million square km was almost 124 million acres, 193,000 square miles or 21,000 square leagues, and 20,000 square km was nearly 5 million acres, over 7700 square miles, or nearly 860 square leagues. Jade didn't have much trouble converting the units, though other, less enthusiastic scholars than she referred to the SI units as 'Scholars' Idiocy'.

There were reams of other details about Galadon. Lists and values of goods traded and produced, in amounts almost incomprehensible to a monarch of Etherion, amounts that far exceeded the entire yearly economy of all Etherion every month. There were details of the seven Universities, a whole book on the Magestia -- the High Lord's paramount Temple, the greatest architectural wonder in all the worlds -- and finally, a massive tome titled: 'Greta & Lessa Schnobb's Definitive Guide to the members of the Peerage, Bar of Justice and Orders of Knighthood of the Kingdom of Galadon (57th Edition, Omnibus of Volumes 1 - 3)'.

Fortunately, Schnobb's Guide was a wonderful example of excellence in publishing, with cut-out indexes for the volumes, ranks, and alphabetical sections of the work. Given that it was over a thousand very thin pages in length, it was rather well laid out and organised. It took only seconds to locate the section on the royal family. In that section was listed the deceased and extant members of the royal family of Galadon, up to the current monarch, King Cymon IV (Styled 'The Energetic'), his wife, Queen Beatrice (styled 'The Fertile') and their seven sons and nine daughters. There was also a listing of King Cymon's known or suspected illegitimate children; thirty-seven boys and twenty-eight girls.

Prince Rodger Auric Merton Cymonson was mentioned at the end of the list of royal children, but while the other children, both male and female, each had their own section, complete with details of their achievements and accomplishments, Prince Rodger had only an entry that amounted to little more than a footnote. Puzzled, Jade skimmed through the next few dozen pages, until she found a colour lithograph of a portrait of the royal family, with a footnote naming each person... including Prince Rodger, the baby in Queen Beatrice's arms.

Princess Jade turned back to the publisher's page, to find the explanation there: the book had been published twenty-five years ago. She turned back to the portraits, since there were more colour lithographs after the family portrait. Jade noticed something odd about some of the pictures. Queen Beatrice was a beautiful, if matronly woman, but King Cymon was neither handsome or ugly... he was that mythical class of person who was of average appearance, a class of person which was practically unheard of on Etherion, and in its own way, made him stand out in a way that even the most beautiful or ugly person could match only with difficulty.

Lysannum, Tharnirion

The following day, the day before the challenge, Rodger went back to the Royal Public Library and looked up the travelling stones, since knowing where they were and where they led could be a distinct advantage. However, the books noted that despite their frequency and the speed that they could lend to travel, they were seldom used. A clear warning accompanied them; excessive use could result in warping, magical changes affecting those who used them, making them no longer quite human. As to what 'Excessive Use' actually was... it varied from person to person, from as little as a single use, to a lifetime and more of use, though most people could use them perhaps a dozen times before noticing changes, unless they already had magic of their own, in which case they had little to worry about.

After familiarising himself with the travelling stones, Rodger browsed Lysannum's market. He bought himself some food that could be easily stored, for use as trail rations, like dried fruit and beef jerky. He bought some lengths of expensive silk rope that was strong but smooth and wouldn't chafe his quarry's skin as readily as cheaper, more readily available hemp rope.

That done, Rodger spent the rest of the day ensuring that his hunting gear was ready. His armour was always ready, but he checked his bow, and made sure that he had a selection of good arrows, including a small number of pile-points and broadheads, and that the rest were ball-headed fowling arrows that were unlikely to cause any dangerous injury to a fleeing princess. He checked that his bolas weren't tangled, so that should the opportunity to tangle the princess' feet arise, they would be ready to throw. He had the bundle of silk ropes he had purchased at the market earlier that day, in case he needed to bind his quarry. His sword and morningstar were both clean and oiled to prevent rust, not that he anticipated using them, unless the other suitors decided to try to reduce their competition.

Nearly done, Rodger brought out his horse, a tiny bronze figurine kept in a metal case, one of the crown treasures of Galadon, a surprising parting gift from his father on the occasion of his banishment. As soon as the case was opened, the figurine turned its head to look at Rodger, then, recognising him, bowed to him.

"Bronze, Grow!" Rodger commanded, and the tiny figurine swelled to the size of a courser. Rodger checked Bronze's saddle and tack, and hung the gear he would need from the saddle. Unlike his other equipment, Rodger checked his spyglass, and left it out to go with his personal kit, rather than putting it in a saddlebag. Satisfied that all was prepared, he commanded Bronze to shrink, the additional gear in the saddlebags shrinking with the figurine, before closing the metal case around the tiny figurine and putting it in his pouch.

Once that was done, Rodger removed his armour and set everything up so that it could be grabbed quickly, and after ordering and eating an evening meal in his room and arranging for breakfast to be brought to him well before dawn, he retired for the night.

After he had fallen asleep, Rodger dreamed of the evening not so long ago, when Princess Jade had strutted naked across the city square right in front of him, flushed with arousal at her exhibitionism. For all that Jade seemed so soft and beautiful, he could tell that there was strength hidden beneath the padding of her skin... not like Lysette, who had been as soft and weak as she had looked. Lysette had been like a delicate bird or flower or porcelain doll, who had looked as if she might break if she was handled too roughly, though Rodger knew that while she hadn't been strong, she had been tough enough to take all the kinky, rough sex that she had demanded and he had been able to give her... until the day when he had watched her being forced to kneel before the headsman's block and lay down upon it with a jailer's boot upon her back, staring sideways at him with terrified eyes as the headsman raised his none-too-sharp axe...